


Everything You Want is a Dream Away

by AvaCelt



Category: Gintama
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Happy Endings For Everyone, Idiots in Love, Kamui and Shinsuke finally have their honest fight, M/M, People finally move on from their parental problems, Romance, Takamui and KoukaKankou parallel fic for the ages, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-09-28 07:48:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10080065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaCelt/pseuds/AvaCelt
Summary: Kouka of the Yato haunted Kamui like Shouyou did Shinsuke. Any other moment, Shinsuke would brush it off, but the world was finally moving forward. There was a new master on Kouan, and Shinsuke couldn't help but introduce himself. [Takamui-Kouka/Kankou parallel fic; Headcanon Gintama Ending]





	1. Maybe One Day I'll Fly Next to You

**Author's Note:**

> Title of the fic derived from Coldplay's "Adventure of a Lifetime."
> 
> Another headcanon ending to Gintama, because I can't trust Sorachi to give my faves happy endings.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The planet's name was Kouan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title of the chapter derived from Coldplay's "O."

Shinsuke woke up to an empty bed.

The cold seeped into his skin as he looked blankly up at his ceiling. The wooden beams supporting the slim roof were dark and thick. He didn't know what tree they were cut from, but he knew that the wood was old. The tiny house wasn't in disrepair, but he figured he'd have to renovate within the next year if he didn't want a snowstorm to bury him while he was sleeping. Dying right now would be anticlimactic. If anything, he'd prefer to go down in flames.

But that was in the future. Shinsuke wasn't nearly as suicidal as he once was. Pressing matters were at hand, and he'd promised himself that he'd make it to the next day. He didn't know where he was heading, but he knew it was some place he needed to be. After all, Kamui was waiting for him.

A long time ago, Shinsuke had felt the need to talk to someone about the madman who came to live with him, so he told the Kiheitai's top commanders. At first, they'd scratched their heads. Then, Bansai had smirked and said that perhaps it was a blessing for the space pirates that the commander of the Kiheitai had so benevolently chosen to take them in. If Shinsuke had refused, then the bumbling tribe would have wandered the galaxy until they starved out. Not many species in the universe had soft spots for the Yato, and without the Harusame's blessings, they wouldn't find much contract work in battlefields across the universe. If Shinsuke hadn't offered his help, Bansai argued, then the pirates would have found their way to dying cities and perished there.

Shinsuke had grunted, but silently agreed. He hadn't extended any hands declaring friendships. He'd simply told a monster that he could come along. He'd saved that monster's life. He cut off his shackles and he freed him from an execution, but that's it. Shinsuke was meant to do the opposite. There was a contract, and though he knew Harusame had lied to him, he still had an obligation to finish the job before leaving.

Yet he hadn't. He'd let the thing live, and then a madman began to lurk on his ship. When he wasn't annoying his lieutenant, training his men, or planning out strategies, Kamui was a ghost. Shinsuke had wanted to say that the man was quiet, maybe even a little introverted, but that wasn't the truth. Kamui was a fleeting nightmare. He was a memory lost to the vestiges of sleep at the break of dawn. Kamui flickered from his sight, melded in with the shadows whenever Shinsuke thought he could reach him.

And like all ghosts, Kamui, too, vanished. That was two years ago. Shinsuke blinked and stared at the fly that buzzed near the wooden beams of his ceiling. Kamui was gone and the Yato tribe had disappeared from Earth's public eye. The Bakufu had crumbled, Harusame was defeated, and Edo became Tokyo.

So why was he still alive?

Nobunobu gave up power a long time ago, and as far as the rest of the world was concerned, Katsura Kotarou was now in charge. The Kiheitai had succeeded in destroying the Bakufu, and when Bansai and Takechi were awarded positions on the new council, Shinsuke disappeared into the background. He disbanded the faction from the shadows, nudging the brighter minds to apply for positions of power in the new state. The others he encouraged to join the newly structured military, led by the Renho and several patriots of the Joui War.

In the end, Gintoki had checked himself into a mental hospital while Zura's government came into power. The silver-haired samurai had killed Utsuro, and even though Shinsuke knew it should have been _him_ with the executioner's sword, he turned away when Gintoki needed him the most. It wasn't anything personal. Shinsuke had simply grown tired of the world. He'd buried Oboro back at the burnt grounds of their old school, and next to his gravestone were the countless other graves of the men and women who'd fought and died in the Joui war. They'd all known Shouyou as their father and they'd all wished to be buried next to him. Even then, they knew. Shouyou had died a long time ago.

Perhaps he should have lent Gintoki a forgiving shoulder, but Shinsuke wasn't that boy anymore. All that remained was a thirty-three year old man who couldn't bear the loneliness anymore. Maybe he should have committed suicide after he found out the leader of the Naraku was none other than the man who'd picked him up and accepted him into his school twenty-five years years ago. He'd certainly considered it, but a beautiful monster with bright red hair made him promise that they'd roam hell together.

But not forever- Kamui never promised he'd stay forever.

He rose from bed and proceeded to get dressed. It took a while, but he finally managed to track down one of the space pirates. Former space pirate, he inwardly corrected. Abuto Yamazaki had married a former Shinsengumi spy and now lived quietly in Tokyo. Abuto's husband worked in Zura's urban restoration division. He was also the head spy in a secret division, keeping an eye on Amanto land developers from afar. Shinsuke had only realized the spy's husband was a Yato after he'd found their photos in the restoration development's personnel files.

In two years, the former lieutenant had quietly erased his past and gotten married. Shinsuke had no doubt that other Yato had followed suit. Maybe they weren't on Earth, but Shinsuke had a feeling they'd also found new homes after the Kiheitai and the tribe went their separate ways. He'd once thought the battles on Rakuyou strengthened their bonds, but Shinsuke was wrong. If anything, it facilitated the demise of one of the most powerful piracy groups in the universe.

He took a car to Tokyo. The ride was long and arduous, but he made it there before the afternoon lunch rush. He made sure the spy was at work and that there was ample time for him to get the information he needed before outside interferences could occur. When the perpetually tired-looking Yato opened the door, Shinsuke was taken aback by how bored he _didn't_ look.

'Takasugi-san, what a surprise.” The blonde rubbed his forehead with the back of his occupied hand, his long hair tied into a ponytail. He didn't have his prosthetic arm on, so the afternoon breeze rustled the empty sleeve with nary a worry. He wore the standard changshan most Yato wore, but just by looking at it, Shinsuke knew that it wasn't the cheap fabric the the tribe had once invested in. The cloth looked softer and was embossed with patterns. The sleeves were lined with silk, the kind the tribe had never been able to afford even when fighting under Harusame. Abuto wore soft house slippers and held a spoon in his only hand. A delicious smell wafted from the entrance of the large house.

“Abuto,” he nodded. “I see you've retired.”

The Yato chuckled, stepping aside to let him in. “A man isn't a man if he doesn't know how to live in two worlds. I suppose I've always wanted a quiet life. Didn't think I'd find it with a human, but I'll take what I can get. Come in.”

Shinsuke followed the Yato inside. They passed the den, a room large enough to fit ten people and furnished with the latest in technology and home goods. They walked to the kitchen where a pot was bubbling with meat and a frying pan sizzling with oil and spices. Abuto stirred the meat for several seconds before he put his spoon in the sink and went to the vegetables that were chopped and waiting in a glass bowl. He gently scooped them into the hot pan, quickly moving away before the hot oil popped and burned his skin. He finally gestured for Shinsuke to sit down at the kitchen table, motioning towards the cushioned chairs.

“So, what brings you here? It's been a while since people have seen you around.” He spoke much more clearly and confidently than he did years before. The melancholic edge that usually laced his words was gone.

Shinsuke cut to the chase. “I'm looking for Kamui.”

Abuto seemed taken aback. “Why? Danchou paid you back, didn't he?” He scratched his head and then frowned. “Don't tell me he owes you money. Look, whatever the amount is, don't worry about it. He'll get it to you eventually. He's a dipshit when it comes to paying back creditors in a timely fashion, but he _does_ pay. You just have to give him a little time.”

“He doesn't owe me money,” he deadpanned. “I need to speak to him.”

“If he doesn't owe you money, then what do you want?”

Shinsuke hadn't rehearsed that far. “That's between us.”

Abuto's face dropped. “Are you pregnant? Can human men get pregnant? Look, if you have a kid, you need to tell me. He's an idiot, but he's _not_ like his father. He can take care of you!”

Shinsuke blinked. If he didn't already have one foot in his grave, he'd snicker. Instead, he just shook his head. “I'm not pregnant. We've never had sex.” He didn't bother explaining that human males couldn't get pregnant.

Abuto let out a sigh of relief. “That's good... I think.”

“Where is he, Abuto,” he asked again. “I'm not looking to hurt him; I just want to talk to him.”

Suddenly, Abuto's expression turned somber, and Shinsuke knew that he'd been figured out. Well, there wasn't any shame in it. The one-armed Yato sighed and shook his head. “He's not here. I mean, he comes, once in a while, but it's only to say hello. I'm told that he's a contractor now. A lot of us left to start new lives, but most of us stayed. He changed the organizational structure of the group. Too many attacks on the entire tribe, so now the tribesmen work in small groups and report back to him every few months. They're full-time mercenaries now.” Abuto broke out into a proud smile. “Instead of staying on a single ship and looking for work as an army, they divided and started providing mercenarial support to a couple of hundred wars across the galaxy. More freedom for the tribesmen to travel, and more capital for the group in general.” Abuto snorted “Danchou was a cheapskate, but he always knew how to keep the benefits package up-to-date.”

That explained why Shinsuke hadn't found that many Yato roaming around Earth. The few that did were never part of Harusame. Some, like Kamui's sister, lived and worked on Earth as migrants. Many were completely ignorant of Harusame's collapse and the Yato collective's break from the old organization. Shinsuke had only found Abuto in the end. Last he heard, the Alien Hunter had also moved into the Yorozuya's apartment, but Shinsuke's sources admitted that even _he_ had no idea where Harusame's former seventh had disappeared to.

But now Shinsuke knew that they hadn't disappeared in the end. They'd scattered, and Shinsuke was going to find their leader.

“He bought us a submarine for our wedding,” Abuto sighed wistfully. Shinsuke saw the affectionate glow in his brown eyes. “I had it stripped and sold for parts, and then we used the revenue to finance the house and build a savings plan. The whole tribe came, ya know, but because there were so many of them, we held the wedding on a different planet. Between the Shinsengumi and the former 7th division, we had a lotta mouths to feed, but Sagaru's smart with strategic planning, so he had all the seating arrangements prepared in less than a week.” By now, Abuto was grinning from ear to ear. It was a friendly grin, the kind that complimented the healthy glow on his skin and the comfortable weight he'd put on. From what Shinsuke remembered, the one-armed Yato had always been the quiet and simple kind. Now, he had a gold ring on a chain that hung around his neck, and he was cooking for a man who'd be home soon for his afternoon lunch. The prosthetic that Abuto had once obsessively fussed over was no where to be found. Two years had changed a drone into a butterfly. Abuto was happy. He'd been content before, but now? Now, he smiled, and there wasn't an ounce of regret behind it.

“ A few them still come to say hello,” Abuto continued, “but Danchou? Danchou doesn't stop by often.”

Shinsuke wondered where Kamui was right now. Was he reviewing the tribe's bank statement? Was he cooking a meal? Kamui liked to eat. It was unfortunate that he'd never cooked for the redhead when he was still around.

“I can give you the place he stayed at when he was last here,” Abuto offered. “But that's it.”

Shinsuke nodded. “Whatever you can provide,” and he meant it.

Abuto nodded and left for a minute. When he came back into the kitchen, he handed Shinsuke a slip of paper with characters scrawled with ink. “It's been eight months, so I don't know if you'll find anything useful.”

“More than nothing,” Shinsuke responded. “Thank you.”

Abuto nodded and showed him the door. Shinsuke took one last glance at the Yato who'd moved on from his past and finally built a future for himself. Maybe in another life, Shinsuke was doing the same instead of hiding away from his childhood friends and former crew. Maybe another world's Shinsuke was buried in the ground near Shouyou's grave. Maybe in another life, _he_ was the one who took Utsuro's head.

But those were different worlds, and in this one, Shinsuke was a suicidal coward who left a borderline diabetic to kill his father again. He bid the one-armed Yato goodbye and got into the car he'd rented for the day. He plugged the directions into his GPS and began to drive towards a shack somewhere on the outskirts of Osaka.

* * *

In a dream, Shinsuke asked Shouyou to aid him in his quest to retrieve the redheaded Yato. He could never have declared this out loud, so he called Shouyou in his dreams. He called his father to lead him to the truth. He didn't know why he did it, but he thought Shouyou owed him that much for leaving him alone in this cold, dark world. In Shinsuke's dream, they traveled across a vast stretch of dark blue water before happening upon a mountain that had homes carved into his sides. Shinsuke glimpsed strands of bright red hair fluttering in the cold wind. He reached out and almost fell off the boat, but Shouyou caught him before he could disappear into the darkness. They got off the boat together and walked up the mountain.

The village was different from the mountain in Shinsuke's dream. This place was filled with hovels and mud-caked paths. There were sick and dying women and children everywhere, their men most likely victims of the war that finally saw the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the rise of Katsura Kotarou's party. Shinsuke left his car in the woods and followed a dirt path into a village riddled with disease and misery, much like Rakuyou.

It rained. Shinsuke didn't have an umbrella, and so the rain soaked his skin and clothes as he made his way to Kamui's mudhouse. When he entered the tiny hovel, he could almost imagine Kamui napping in the middle of the one-roomed hut. It was empty and had been for a long time, but a broken umbrella and a pair of torn shoes lay in a corner, signaling that Kamui had once stayed here. Shinsuke imagined Kamui's sleeping face and his breath faltered. He blinked. He didn't know what to do or what to say. In his head, Kamui was perfectly fine. He imagined him with a few cuts here and there, but besides that, he looked whole and healthy in his mind.

Shinsuke created a bed and similar effects. He imagined Kamui sleeping underneath a threadbare comforter, a dingy pillow underneath his head. His clothes would be folded in the corner of his room, opposite of the broken umbrella and torn shoes. He already knew that Kamui slept in worn tunics and faded trousers, but he also imagined him without his plait. Even the hair ties that kept his braid together were gone. He imagined Kamui as he always knew him- alone. He slept as frugally as he lived, as if he owned nothing and owed nothing.

To Shinsuke, that was the most beautiful thing about him.

But there was no more Kamui, and all that signaled that he'd once been here was the broken umbrella and the torn shoes strewn in the corner. That and the-

What was that? Shinsuke walked towards a crumpled piece of paper thrown to the side. He picked it up and smoothed it out. It was larger than he expected, so he knelt down on the floor and flattened out the creases before deciphering the language and pictures inscribed into the rough paper.

It was a map of a land Shinsuke had never heard of. Angry scrawls littered the corners of the paper, while rough sketches of mountains, gorges, and cliffs took up most of the space. No roads. He'd always pegged the redhead as an adventurer, but never so devoted in discovery and record-keeping that he'd create a map of a new finding. Shinsuke squinted, reading the written language of the Yato. He picked up notes on snakes, dry air, and cold nights. There were doodles of Kamui bearing his teeth, ones where he chased reptiles, and others where the reptiles chased _him_. Shinsuke blinked. Kamui was adventuring. Here he was, huddled away for two years in a shack out in the outskirts of a fishing village, while the object of his affections mapped out the rough terrain of an unknown planet.

Shinsuke smirked. It was more like Kamui than he imagined. He sighed, hoping the map could tell him more. It was a rough draft meant for the trash bin, so there was probably a better one waiting with Kamui. When Shinsuke found him, he'd ask him why he'd mapped out this simple world with its simple creatures. It would be a private conversation, held underneath their shared comforter as they slowly fell asleep in each other's arms.

A frayed corner caught Shinsuke's eye. The ink was smudged, but still legible. He made out the letters, worn with age and bogged down with crinkles.

 _Kouan._ The planet's name was Kouan.

He was back in his rented car and on his way to his small hut before the day was over. It took several days to see to the arrangements, but before the week was over, Shinsuke was in an airship and up in the air. He'd boarded an aircraft that would take him to planet where someone like him could rent out a pod to travel to any planet in the universe that allowed human migrants to enter its atmosphere. There were no ships on Earth that traveled to Kouan. He figured. If Kamui was mapping that planet, that either meant that the land hadn't been mapped before or that the beings that _had_ once mapped the place were no longer around to share their knowledge. The Yato were a dying race with no home. It made sense for Kamui to seek out those that had already perished.

He boarded a ship with nothing but the clothes on his back, a sword strapped to his side, and a prayer that Kamui was there. He'd contacted Tatsuma already to meet him on the intermediary planet. When they met, he'd request for directions to Kouan, and then he'd be on his way.

“Wait for me,” he spoke into thin air. The travelers around him ignored his presence and concentrated on their own business. For that, Shinsuke was thankful.

* * *

 


	2. Kyunki Tum Hi Ho, Ab Tum Hi Ho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kamui took three steps forward, but Shinsuke took three steps back, so they never touched. Kamui tried, but Shinsuke didn't, and that was how their world ended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title of the chapter derived from Arijit Singh's "Tum Hi Ho." Lyrics used in chapter title roughly translate into "because it's you, now it's you."
> 
> Italicized sections of text are dream sequences.

_Everything on the mountain glowed except the shack, and Shinsuke knew that, that was where he'd find his beloved. He and his father entered the dingy hovel and were immediately transported to a bedroom that housed a child's bed. The worn comforter had broken dolls strewn across it. When they turned around, they came upon a closed door. A single sign told them that it was a silent tea room. Shinsuke blinked and went to open the door, but Utsuro held him back. Shinsuke's shoulders sagged and they were whisked away to another room._

_The den was magnificently furnished and cozy, a stark contrast to the kind of setting Kamui usually liked. That's when Shinsuke knew something was terribly wrong. A map was strewn across the carpeted floor, the remnants of an amateur cartographer. To Shinsuke's surprise, a broken teacup was next to the inkpot and pen._

_He turned to Utsuro. His father's face was etched with grim curiosity. They nodded silently to each other, and began to make their way up the stairs and into the series of rooms adorning the long hallway. Shinsuke never knew a hovel could be this big and beautifully made. Shinsuke knew he'd been here many times before, but he hadn't had a guide then. Usually, it was him roaming the halls of his memory, wondering where his life ended and the monstrous leader of the Kiheitai began. On his first trip, he had only taken notice of four rooms. There was the child's bedroom, the room where Kamui's mother had died, the tea room, and the one extra room that Shinsuke saw from the corner of his eye but never opened. Memories came and went, and Shinsuke tried to remember why his dreams made Kamui's childhood home a mansion. He'd grown up in a shack. He was born poor, and he'd lived hungry. If anything, there should have been one room and no toys, but there were many rooms, and many things. As Shinsuke and Utsuro steadily made their way through the rooms, Shinsuke's heart stilled._

“ _Maps,” he murmured to himself. “He made maps. He wanted to go back home.”_

_Utsuro nodded and transformed into Shouyou. Shinsuke shooed away the memories of the past, along with the insecurities that lay buried deep within his heart._

“ _He wanted to go where his mother was born,” he told the wraith that was his father. “She never told him the name of the planet, even when he tried to get Harusame to take them there... Umibouzu may have been the one who lost his arm, but Kamui was the one who lost his mind. The planet's name was just as lost, but he wanted to go there anyway.” Shinsuke has a feeling this tiny piece of information needed to be repeated over and over again. This planet in a faraway galaxy- that's where Kamui would go to die._

“ _Have you met her?” Shouyou asked._

“ _Once,” he admitted. “When I was in a coma... She came to me. She didn't speak, but she came to see me. She was very beautiful.”_

_Shouyou smiled as the rooms blurred and disappeared into smoke. Soon, they were in a spaceless fog, Kamui's maps and trinkets gone from sight._

“ _A young lad like him needs a good friend. I didn't know Kouka, but I knew she was like me,” Shouyou whispered, “she must have been so lonely.”_

“ _Alone,” Shinsuke whispered. “She was alone.”_

“ _It's a curse, Shinsuke. It's always been nothing but a curse. The only way to erase it is to leave and waste away. That's what happened to Kouka of the Yato. She left and wasted away.” The smoke swirled around them, and they were back in the room with the maps. Shouyou held his arm as they looked._

“ _Kamui,” he called. “It's me, Shinsuke. I need you to come out now.” No answer. There was no one in the room but them. The map was now folded and tucked away in a bookcase. He turned to Utsuro and frowned. “He's alive. He's probably lurking somewhere in the house. He tends to do that.” Utsuro sighed and Shinsuke heard the sound of crows. His heart began to thunder in his chest. “Don't let them hurt him,” he pleaded. “Father, please.”_

_Utsuro led him out of the map room and further down the hall. “And why would I let them hurt him? You said it yourself- he's alive.”_

_They searched some more, floating between memories and smoke.“He couldn't have left,” Shinsuke gritted his teeth._

“ _I assure you, he didn't.” Utsuro replied cryptically. “We're looking in all the wrong places, Shinsuke.”_

_Shinsuke sighed, frustrated at the fact that he could never find things on his own, could never admit that he was always wrong._

_Then a thought occurred to him._

“ _Four rooms, a mountain, and maybe a tea room. He could be anywhere.”_

“ _Anywhere,” his father agreed._

“ _But he's probably in the room where his mother died.” Shinsuke remembered what the Yato tribesmen whispered behind Kamui's back. “He'd already left by then. He wasn't there to bury her.”_

_Utsuro cocked an eyebrow. “Is that so?”_

“ _All of these things, this house, these rooms, these objects... He has everything, but no one to share them with. His mother had an entire planet, but she was still alone.”_

“ _She's not here, Shinsuke.” Utsuro reminded him._

“ _But the idea of her is still here. She haunts him like you haunt me.”_

“ _Touche,” he chuckled. When the house took them to Kouka's death room, Shouyou vanished._

_The room was as Shinsuke thought it would be. The walls were plastered with cheap floral patterns. Rickety racks that contained household objects were pushed against the few windows the room contained. A lacquer box sat in the corner with a pair of earrings on top of it. The table and chair next to it contained bottles of medicine, toys, and odd little trinkets. It was a small, drab room befitting any dying woman with two children and a useless husband._

_And then there was the map. It was melded into the browning plaster of the floral patterned wall, peeling at the ends and ready to crumble at a single touch. It was a map of Kouan._

_But Kamui wasn't in the room._

“ _Damn it.” He cursed under her breath and walked out, softly shutting the door behind him. “He's not in there,” he spoke to the wisps of fog. Utsuro was long gone. He breathed deeply, massaging his temples. “He should know I'm here. He's never hid from a fight. Where are you, Kamui?”_

_Silence. No one answered Shinsuke's pleas. Exasperation overtook him as he realized that it wasn't pity that was driving him- it was fear. Kamui was dangerous, regardless of how breathtakingly beautiful he was, and left alone he could easily turn into a wraith himself.“Kamui of the Yato,” he started. “His name is Kamui of the Yato. He was adopted by the King of Night, Housen of the Yato. When Housen left for Earth, Kamui took over the seventh division. Kamui became captain at fifteen. Kamui's been their captain for ten years. Kamui-”_

_The tears. He remembers how much Kamui cried when he thought no one was looking. It was on a rainy night that Abuto told him that it was their Danchou's mother's death anniversary. They treated it like any other day, but when night fell, the captain retreated to his room earlier than anyone else. They didn't know what he did to commemorate the woman, but they didn't ask and they certainly didn't bother him. Shinsuke had been curious, and so he had peeked into his room._

_Kamui was crying. It wasn't that ugly, loud crying he'd seen Gintoki and Zura participate in. It was that sorrowful crying that only a monster could relate to. Kamui cried into dying flowers._

_The tea room, Shinsuke remembered. Snakes slithered in and out of his memories._

_Shinsuke ran. He turned to the right of the corridor and met a door with a plaque emblazoned into the dark wood. 'Silent Tea Room' was intricately melded into the brass in clean script. The door, thankfully, was unlocked, and he turned the brass knob slowly. When he let the door swing open, he saw a warmly lit room with a round table in the middle. It was topped with cups, saucers, and a brimming pot of tea. Then, out of the four chairs, he saw two occupied by rabbits, one empty, and the last one tilted over._

_Kamui hung above the tilted chair, a thick cord of rope tied around his slim, pale throat. Something kept Kouka of the Yato alive for hundreds of years before she chose the true death over an eternity of loneliness. There was nothing that could keep Kamui interested long enough to live into old age, and so he went._

_He went and left Shinsuke, just like everyone did._

* * *

When he woke up, the ship had already landed. He got off and phoned Tatsuma, and afterwards, he ate some dry food and stared at the crumpled map while he waited. The nightmare turned his skin clammy and raised goosebumps along his spine, but at least the pictures started coming together. Suddenly, he didn't regret having smoked and listened in on the gossip that the Yato had shared with the Kiheitai. Conversations floated in and out of his memory, mentions of a dead woman and a useless father floating in the space between Kamui and himself. Neglect. He'd neglected Kamui in the end, just like Kamui's father had neglected him. He'd left Kamui behind just like his mother left him when she chose death over a life of loneliness. He didn't hold Kamui, even when Kamui carried him back to their ship after Gintoki had beaten him within an inch of his life. Kamui took three steps forward, but Shinsuke took three steps back, so they never touched. Kamui tried, but Shinsuke didn't, and that was how their world ended. Kamui left, and Shinsuke didn't even notice until he found Kamui's room devoid of his possessions.

They'd never had sex, but they'd stayed up whole nights together. Sometimes they sat in silence, and sometimes they talked. Shinsuke had played the shamisen for him, and Kamui had taught him how to read and write in the Yato's native tongue. Shinsuke had smoked his pipe, and Kamui had hummed tunes Shinsuke had never heard before. They were together, and then they weren't.

Once, long ago, he took off his sandals and folded his haori over a stool in Kamui's room. He unwrapped the bandage covering his dead eye, and tightened his inner yukata closer to his body. He climbed into Kamui's bed and slipped underneath the comforter. He put his head on Kamui's chest and fell asleep. That was the night he'd found out Utsuro was Shouyou, that the crow was really the father he thought had died to save his life. Shinsuke was broken and had heard his dead mother call for him to come to her. He should have slit his throat that very moment, should have slipped into the abyss so he wouldn't have to deal with knowing that he was a fool from the start, but he hadn't. Instead, he found comfort in an Amanto's arms. He sought Kamui's warmth, the gentle touch of his rough hands, and the hair that was as blood red as it was silky soft. That was the closest they ever got to intimacy, and then it all disappeared like wisps of smoke. Shinsuke died but managed to crawl out of his grave long enough to kill Oboro and feel another piece of his soul shatter, and while he was burying the former crow, Kamui left.

They had never held hands, never kissed, never told each other that they meant something to each other. They were strangers, even when they weren't.

“What's this about, Shinsuke?” Tatsuma inquired when he finally found Shinsuke on the port.

“I have to get to Kouan. I need you to give me the directions.”

Tatsuma frowned. “That's a dying planet. It's got a lot of toxic Altana and there aren't any inhabitants.”

“There's one,” Shinsuke deadpanned, his working eye staring out into the cold, yellow sea the podship port was build on. He'd stopped wrapping the bandage around his head, so everyone else could see the dead eye that never opened regardless of what happened in front of it.

Tatsuma quirked an eyebrow. “Mind if I ask who?”

“Kamui,” Shinsuke answered simply.

“Ya sure this is what you want? That planet's not known for its kindness, and if yer friend was there, then he might have left already.”

“He's there,” Shinsuke said with some determination. “I know he is.”

“Of course ya do. Do me a favor, though, Shinsuke. If you go, take one of my ships. You can't carry a passenger back in these single-man pods.”

Shinsuke hadn't thought of it like that. He'd just assumed he'd stay on Kouan. He had nothing on him, and he had nothing back on Earth. The Edo he hated had already burned. Tokyo wasn't home, Shouyou was dead, and Shinsuke was alone. He hadn't visited Gintoki once since he willingly put himself in a mental health facility, didn't attend Zura's wedding to Elizabeth, didn't even put in calls to formally congratulate his former crewmen on their new jobs in Zura's government. He'd stayed in the shadows for two years, with Oboro's blood on his hands and Utsuro's ghost on his heels. He didn't plan on going back.

“OK.” If there was a chance Kamui could come back with him, he'd take it. He didn't know why. There was nothing for Kamui on Earth, but there was everything for Shinsuke on Kouan.

As Tatsuma prepped the ship and wrote out the directions to the crew that would take Shinsuke to Kouan, he thought about the woman who visited him when he was dead and floating in a sea of smokeless fire. She was a beautiful woman with hair as bright as fire. She hadn't spoken but she'd reached out to him. He'd taken her hand and followed her out of the burning sea. Once they'd walked into a forest, she turned around and bid him goodbye before fading away. Then it began to rain. When he woke up, Matako was crying on his face.

And Kamui was gone.

“It's where his mother was born,” he told Tatsuma. “She left it to be with his father.”

Tears pooled in Tatsuma's eyes, but he simply rubbed his wet eyes before waving him off with a laugh. “Ya know, there's a legend attached to that planet. They say that it was once ruled by a ferocious monster called the 'Master of Kouan.' Apparently, a great hero eventually defeated the monster and no one's bothered to go near it since.”

“And what was it before it became the Master of Kouan's playground?”

“The Yato's home planet,” Tatsuma whispered softy. “If his mother's from there, then she was the master. Kouan hasn't known any survivors in hundreds of years. If there was a person living on that planet, then it had to be someone from the clan that survived the nuclear attacks.”

Shinsuke nodded and bid the bespectacled man goodbye. There were still tears in Tatsuma's eyes, but Shinsuke didn't know how to tell him that he didn't deserve his kindness. Shinsuke didn't deserve much of anything. His anger and belligerence were his own creations. No one told him to love too hard, hate too much, and then wallow in his depression until it transformed into a psychopathy that craved blood and misery more than anything else.

No one told Shinsuke to feel, but he did, so when he and his borrowed crew blasted off into hyperspace, he felt again.

“The Master of Kouan,” he whispered out loud. Even when the Yato were with the Kiheitai, Kamui hadn't been able to figure out the name of his mother's home planet. In the past two years since he'd left Shinsuke, he'd finally managed to figure it out and even made a visit. It made sense. Shinsuke was useless. He'd never been able to whole ass a damn thing in his life. Even Edo's destruction required the entirety of the Heavenly Kings instead of just Shinsuke and his violent faction. He could never put things together on his own. He could never help others when they needed him the most. He was selfish. His biological father knew that and disowned him. He was a narcissist of the highest degree, and that's why Utsuro confided in him. He was a creature that belonged in the darkest depths of hell, and that's why he craved destruction over everything else.

Why did he have to be that way? Why had Zura found peace with an Amanto while Shinsuke couldn't even deal with knowing that Shouyou was still out there? Why had Gintoki chosen a life in a private hospital and daily medication for the rest of his life while Shinsuke roamed the universe for a man who had gotten tired of waiting for him? Maybe his mother had dropped him on his head. Maybe he was jealous his brothers were loved and respected much more than he ever was. Maybe it was because everyone always knew he was much more useful in the background than in the forefront.

But Kamui never looked at him like he couldn't finish things on his own. He never protected his back, but he stood beside him. He never hit him when he was down, but he told them that one day they'd share an honest fight. Kamui owed him, but never pestered Shinsuke about the debt. Kamui paid him back, and Shinsuke looked at everyone else but him.

So when Kamui left, Shinsuke didn't get the chance to say goodbye, and he knew he deserved it. So Shinsuke felt. He felt regret, pain, and guilt that had festered parts of his soul over the course of fifteen years.

He felt love. He felt love for a man that had become the new master of Kouan.

* * *

 

He didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't _this_. The land wasn't as barren as Shinsuke had imagined. If anything, it was simply sparse. He could make out the peeks of destroyed cities, but healthy green had begun to spring in the crevices between the sand and the steel. Shinsuke could make out faraway buildings that still seemed to be standing. There were different species of birds flying around, and critters scuttling about the sandy ground. There was life on this planet. Kamui could be anywhere, but Shinsuke had a feeling that if he followed the snakes, he'd find him. Waving off the crew, Shinsuke tightened the borrowed clothes around his body and began his search.

It took less than an hour for the snakes to find him, and even less time for them to start attacking him.

He jumped, his sword ready to strike. He thought about cutting them down, but then he recalled the doodles that were peppered throughout the map. Kamui had been smiling in those pictures. If anything, he and these snakes had played together like children out in a cornfield after school lessons were over. He grimaced and brought the hilt of his sword down on one of the large snakes, stunning it into submission. He did that to as many snakes as he could manage before he found himself losing momentum. They were only stunned for a few minutes before their senses returned and they began charging after him again, but the few that Shinsuke had managed to completely put to sleep only seemed to be replaced by even _more_ snakes.

Shinsuke lasted fourteen hours. After he put his tenth snake to sleep for good, he felt himself trip on his own feet and go tumbling downwards. He fell face first into the sand. Night had fallen and it had grown cold, but Shinsuke was content. He hadn't killed any of Kamui's friends, and at thirty-three, he'd lasted a full fourteen hours against a group of alien creatures. It was a noble ending. He had nothing to be ashamed of, though he'd hoped to see Kamui one more time before he slipped into the abyss for good.

He expected death, but instead what he got was a snake. One of the reptiles nudged his tired body onto its back and began slithering towards somewhere far away from where Shinsuke had landed. His sword was gone, his skin was growing cold, but at least he wasn't alone. His working eye peered into the darkness and saw glowing creatures lurking about in the shadows of the decimated buildings. They passed by remnants of vehicles, homes, and broken roads. They slithered over cliffs and through forestry, and Shinsuke was amazed at how much _life_ there was on this place that once hailed Kamui's mother as its master.

Shinsuke saw stars. He saw grass and trees, buildings that were covered in moss, skeletons of aircrafts, and finally, a graveyard. Each stone had an umbrella pinned in the dirt next to it. Shinsuke wanted to reach out and scream. Kamui couldn't be there. He hadn't come all this way to a hollow planet only to be told that everyone had perished. This was Kouka's home. This was _Kamui's_ home. Shinsuke only wanted to talk to him.

The last thing he saw before he slipped into unconsciousness was the tell-tale sign of a crescent moon.

* * *

In his dream, Shouyou frowned and shook his head before turning away for good. Shinsuke called out to him and tried to reach for his sleeve, but all he grasped was thin air. Shouyou disappeared into the abyss and Shinsuke began to cry.

He woke up in someone's arms, his head resting against a strong shoulder while stronger arms carried him towards absolution. “Am I dead?” He asked. He knew he should have been. He should have died a long time ago.

“You're an old man now, Shinsuke. You shouldn't be putting yourself through so much stress at this age. If you don't stop, you'll lose all of your hair before you're forty,” tutted a melodious voice.

He grinned, cursing and praising his luck simultaneously. “You have enough hair for the both of us.”

Kamui sighed, his red mane free of its plait and fluttering softly with the breeze. “I take _care_ of my hair, thank you very much.”

“Aren't you stressed out, carrying this old man and all?” Shinsuke teased, because he didn't know how to properly say sorry, or even a thank you.

“A true mercenary king never lets plebeian matters phase him,” Kamui declared, his face masked with his perpetual smile.

“I thought you wanted to be a pirate king.”

“That's what I just said.”

“No, you said mercenary king.”

“I don't know what you think you thought you heard, but you're wrong.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm.”

Kamui began humming a tune and Shinsuke began drifting off in his arms when he suddenly remembered that he was there for a reason. He could always wait until morning, but he couldn't be sure if Kamui would still be there. Why would he? Shinsuke had never made him a priority, so Kamui had no obligation to help beyond the usual courtesy. If Shinsuke had anything to say, he had to say it now.

“Why are you here, Shinsuke?”

Shinsuke blinked. In his reverie, he'd forgotten that Kamui was also unaware of his intentions. “I wanted to speak to you.”

Kamui's expression didn't change. “You could have sent a message with another Yato. You didn't have to come here.”

“I wanted to speak to _you_ ,” he emphasized.

“Well, we're talking now. Clock's ticking, Shinsuke. Your spaceship isn't too far away.”

So he knew. He'd known since Shinsuke entered the atmosphere, and he'd willfully avoided him even when the snakes were trying to deliver Shinsuke into his arms. He wondered if they were still friends, if they'd ever have an honest fight. Kamui had paid off his debt, so he had no reason to be anywhere near him, but what did Shinsuke have besides his father's ghost?

“Why are you here, Kamui? Your mother's buried on Rakuyou.”

Kamui stopped walking. They were in a vast desert, the sand pink and the sky pitch black and dotted with stars. “I'm visiting my friends, Shinsuke.”

His voice wasn't tight like it was when he was angry. Kamui was being truthful. The snakes had been following them this entire time, but they hid in the sand and stayed a safe distance away so that they didn't appear as giant pillars capable of blocking out the sky. Kamui was visiting his friends and taking his life one day at a time. It was Shinsuke who had nothing left, not Kamui.

“You didn't come to say hello to her ghost?” That elicited a laugh from the younger man. He began walking again, and Shinsuke didn't care where they were headed, but only that it was cold and that Kamui was his only source of warmth.

“There are no ghosts here, Shinsuke,” Kamui spoke with a spring in his step. “There's only life. The Yato that lived here died a very long time ago. A new world is beginning to thrive over their graves. It's beautiful, you know. I'm watching life come from death.”

He didn't want to think about the implications behind that statement. He knew Kamui had taken care of his mother and sister as a child while his father frolicked around the universe for a magical cure for his dying wife. It was the redhead's first stark battle with reality. The alien hunter loved his wife more than he loved his children, so he abandoned them to give the Master of Kouan another chance at life. But Umibouzu had failed, and Kouka of the Yato died on a rainy, desolate planet instead of her homeland where her snakes were still waiting for her. Shinsuke wondered- did the snakes think Kamui was Kouka? Was he _really_ their new master?

Would Kamui ever leave?

“Don't worry, Shinsuke.” Kamui's voice was gentle and melodic. “It's not that difficult to grasp. The war only killed the people, but it didn't kill the planet. Altana is pure energy. My mother lived here for a long time before my father came. By the time she left, Kouan's Altana had already dispersed through the atmosphere and into space. The cracks have healed and the Altana's finally started rebuilding itself in the core without fear of leakage. The creatures are safe. If anything, we can come back. The Yato can come home.”

“Will you stay?” Shinsuke asked. “Will you start a family?”

Kamui laughed. “Nope. I don't want to fight my own children. I'm bad, but I'm not _that_ bad.”

“You don't have to fight your children.”

Kamui shrugged. “Your family fought you and won, and mine beat me silly with a human assist. Maybe I'm still bummed about my losses.” He pouted, and Shinsuke wanted nothing more to kiss away his sadness.

“It must be nice having a planet to yourself.”

“It is,” he beamed. “The Orochi are welcoming. I even built a house and started a garden.”

Shinsuke felt the sadness weigh down his heart again, and wondered if his hut back on Earth would survive the coming winter. Maybe the roof would collapse in the middle of the night and bury Shinsuke in the debris. Maybe he'd die being a bad friend and a useless commander. Kamui would spend his future gardening, playing with his snakes, roaming the universe, and being the best that ever lived. What did Shinsuke have to offer a man who was born at the pit of the barrel and grew up to have everything?

Nothing. Shinsuke had nothing to offer him.

“One day, I'll bring you some tomatoes,” Kamui promised. “But now, you have to go. Humans can't survive in this climate for long. The planet is still healing and won't be able to host non-Yato for at least another fifty years. If your bones aren't already brittle by then, come by. I'll make you something to eat.” Kamui placed him at the foot of a cliff, and at the top of the rock formation, Shinsuke saw the tell-tale outline of the ship Tatsuma had lent to him.

“You'd die alone if it meant atoning for what happened to her.”

Kamui shrugged. “She should've aborted me when she had the chance. The lack of Altana wouldn't have killed her as fast if she'd forgone having children. She still would have died, but she would have died a little older and a little happier.”

Shinsuke felt the tears rise in his working eye, his throat hollow with the guilt that threatened to spill out of his chest. “She loved you more than she loved herself.”

“Just as your father loved you before he asked the samurai to kill him,” Kamui countered, his face blank and eyes crinkled with his age. “Let's not play pretend, Shinsuke. I've never told you how to deal with your past, so I'm expecting the same courtesy.”

“We told Gintoki to go to your sister because of what you were doing. You were going to kill her. Your mother died for you both, and you were going to send her daughter back to her.”

Kamui turned away from him and started making his way back to the Orochi that lurked in the sands. “You're good at forgetting things, Shinsuke. Forget that you ever heard her story, and forget that you ever met me.”

Shinsuke felt the remaining bit of his soul crumble with Kamui's words. “And you'll stay here? You'll never come back?”

Kamui turned back to him once, his eyes just as hollow as Utsuro's. There was no regret creasing his expression, marking the face of a man who'd become tired with the world's nonsense. Kamui looked ageless, ethereal in a way a god was, both untouchable and aloof. “There's nothing for me on Earth,” he said. “Returning would be a waste of time.”

With that, Kamui disappeared into the night, his red hair free and flowing with the cold wind. Shinsuke watched him as he disappeared out of sight, and once all signs of him were completely gone, he curled up against the rocks and fell asleep.

Kouka of the Yato almost got her daughter back that day. Yoshida Shouyou _did_ get his child back. It wasn't Shinsuke, or Gintoki, or Zura. It was Oboro. He'd killed Oboro and sent him back to his father who awaited his return in the abyss. It should have been Shinsuke who walked into the flames, but Oboro went instead. In the end, even the one-eyed crow found its happy ending, and that was in the abyss where its father waited for it with open arms and a beaming smile.

Shinsuke had nothing. Kamui walked away, the universe kept moving forward, but Shinsuke was still alone. Every day, every moment, every breath he took- he took alone.

* * *

 


	3. I Never Knew Daylight Could be so Violent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kamui only looked forward, only smiled ahead, only knew that whatever a person wanted had to be something they were willing to die for.

He didn't leave.

Maybe it was out of sheer pettiness, or maybe it was because Tatsuma had probably already spread the news that he was still alive and lurking in the shadows. If he went back to Earth right now, he knew he'd have to answer to people who still worried about him. He firmly believed that he didn't deserve neither their love nor their care, so he hid. He hid away on an old planet with a new master, staying in the shadows and following the signs the Orochi left behind for him as he mapped out where Kamui built his new home and garden.

Shinsuke was selfish. Yoshida Shouyou knew that and kept him close. He taught him how to navigate humanity as a person instead of as a monster. Few were privy to the fact that Shinsuke's bloodlust had always existed. Coupled with his childhood anger and his inability to make meaningful friendships, he learned to manipulate people and situations to his advantage. Zura always knew, but he didn't judge. Gintoki figured it out, but couldn't do much about it, and by the time the war was over and Yoshida Shouyou was dead, his hatred and his manipulative tendencies amplified tenfold.

Gintoki was wrong. The little boy that happened upon Shouka Sonjuku was worse than broken. Again, only Zura and Shouyou saw it, and that's why he latched on to them so fiercely. He knew Gintoki had it worse, knew that Gintoki had grown up in a hovel and had, had to scavenge for food on battlefields after his village was decimated by Amanto, but Shinsuke was selfish. He demanded the most attention, the most love, the most of everything because something was _always_ lacking in his heart. At least Gintoki had never known his biological parents, and Shinsuke had never cared enough about his own to speak up, but Zura- Zura had watched his entire family die while growing up and even _he_ didn't demand as much as Shinsuke did.

Shinsuke wondered why Bansai agreed to join him, wondered why a man so brilliant and quiet fell for his silver tongue when he could have lived and died a glorious ronin. He wondered why Takechi Henpeita betrayed his government for a one-eyed freak and his nonsensical words. He wondered why he saved Matako's life and swindled her into years of running a division full of murderers instead of dropping her off in a land far away from her decimated hometown and free from the Bakufu's influence.

He conned, killed, and laughed his way to absolution. He betrayed those who'd lived and died for him, and when it was time for him to stand up and lead them to victory, he left. He destroyed his own fleet, dismantled the hierarchy, and pushed the best towards open positions that would see to it that the new world would never be tainted by the Tokugawa clan. It was his gift to Shouyou's memory.

It was his mistake. Everyone lived but him, and everyone had everything but him. As always, Shinsuke was the last to figure it out.

On the twelfth day, he began to cough up blood. The blood and spittle painted a bright red streak across the sleeve of his beige jacket, and that's when he knew that Kouan was beginning to kill him. On the fifteenth day, he fainted in the sand a few yards away from his makeshift camp. Some time after that, he woke up in a room with wide slits in the brickwork and sunlight streaming through the openings.

Kamui was reading a book. Shinsuke didn't recognize the script and figured it was one of the many languages Kamui had likely picked up over the years. He wore a white changshan fastened at his waist with a dark blue belt. He wore soft brown shoes, and his skin was tanned and healthy, as if he'd been basking in the light ever since he came here. His hair was back in its customary braid, but he'd grown out the thick mane. He hadn't noticed before, but Kamui's eyes were bluer than ever before, crystal clear and brimming with energy. With an open book and a steaming cup of tea, Kamui looked normal. He looked happy.

“I told you to go home,” he chastised, eyes fixed on the pages of his book. “I know you're not deaf.”

“It's a free country,” he shrugged, though he knew it wasn't. “I decided to do some exploring.”

He shut the book and gave Shinsuke a sharp smile, the kind that signaled that one wrong word could result in a lost head. “Even after I _specifically_ mentioned how dangerous it would be to your health.”

“A man's not a man if he hasn't faced death at least twice in a given month.” He picked up that line from Abuto- truly, their generation's greatest Yato poet. At thirty-nine, his philosophical woe was much more potent than Shinsuke's, so he thought it necessary to pay homage to the one-armed married man.

Kamui's smile shifted into a judgmental smirk. Shinsuke chuckled, though it hurt his chest. Over the years, he'd learned how to distinguish the subtle changes in Kamui's facial expressions that marked changes in emotion and health. With his current look, Kamui was in tip-top shape and he was very annoyed, which meant he would snap soon.

And when he did, Shinsuke would be ready.

“You're being childish,” the redhead groused. “And you're wasting my time. The Orochi have lives. They can't save you every time you lose your balance.”

Shinsuke got up and stretched his arms. His chest felt warm, as if someone had rubbed juniper oil on it while he was asleep. His fever was gone and he felt somewhat stronger, so he knew Kamui had saved his life.

Again. Kamui had saved his life again.

“I thought about going back, but it seemed boring going back alone.”

“You have a crew, don't you? A man only needs his crew.”

Shinsuke shook his head. “A man needs his friends too.”

“Flattery is unbecoming of you, Shinsuke.”

“What if I want more than just to flatter you?”

Kamui quirked an eyebrow, his smile shifting into blankness while his blue eyes turned hollow. “I'm not impressed.”

“I want you.” They stayed silent for several seconds, and then in the blink of an eye, Kamui's fingers were wrapped around his throat. If he wanted to, he could snap Shinsuke's neck, but he didn't. This was a warning sign. That meant he was close. “I want you,” he repeated again, the words raspy with the pressure of Kamui's fingers. “I don't want to leave without you.”

Kamui sneered. “And why would I want you?”

Shinsuke smiled, as if he wasn't staring Death in the face. “You could have let me fall. Your sister told me that you caught me. She said you saved my life.” Kamui's face fell as he let go of Shinsuke's neck, but before he could move again, Shinsuke grabbed his hand. “Tell me why. Why did you want me to live? What do you think I have that's worth saving over and over again?”

Kamui didn't answer him. Instead, he made to pull away, but Shinsuke held tight. Kamui growled, pushing him back, but Shinsuke pulled him forward so that they were half-sprawled on the bed. With both hands, as stubborn and willful as the day he was born, Shinsuke held on. Kamui seethed but Shinsuke caressed. His fingers dug into the soft fabric of Kamui's changshan and beckoned him to come closer. Kamui turned away but Shinsuke's fingers found solace in his thick red hair. He massaged loose strands, let his fingers flicker down the curve of Kamui's spine, before letting his fingers press against the tanned skin of the redhead's neck. He felt Kamui's pulse. He inhaled his scent and found comfort in his warmth. When he felt Kamui falter, he embraced him. He pressed his tired body against Kamui's warm back and buried his face in Kamui's neck. His hands shook while he cried, but he held on. It hurt. The loneliness hurt, and Kamui was too close for him to let go.

He tried to remember the last time he initiated a hug. Was it towards Shouyou, back he was a child and unknowing of the misery written in his future? Was it toward Zura, whom he felt equal parts affection for and jealousy towards even when they were children? Was it towards Gintoki, his best friend and worst enemy? Was it towards his pillow, the cold, stiff fabric a reminder of his isolation from both the world and his past? He couldn't remember. It had been so long.

He felt himself being shoved away before he was pulled into a kiss. Kamui's lips were soft. Against his own, they felt like feathers. He stilled at the kiss, thinking that maybe the planet was trying fool him into thinking he had a chance at salvation, but Kamui persisted. Shinsuke hadn't taken care of himself in years. His hands were rough and his lips were chapped. His body was awkward and discolored with scars after years of picking battles he could only win if he gave up a piece of his soul each time. Against the Yato, he was garbage, but he didn't care. Kamui was gentle when he kissed, reassuring and kind. His deft fingers undid the buttons of Shinsuke's borrowed shirt and gently pushed away the fabric until Shinsuke's chest was exposed. He untied the strings of his cotton trousers and slid them off Shinsuke's legs along with his underwear. His bare skin prickled against the chilliness in the room, but Kamui was quick. He covered Shinsuke with his clothed body and ground his crotch against Shinsuke's exposed erection while kissing him deeply. Shinsuke moaned, drinking in the languid movements and relishing in the feeling of another body moving against him, on top of him.

Kamui detached himself from Shinsuke and got up to take off his clothes. Shinsuke watched as he took off his changshan and belt, and then slipped out of his trousers and underwear. The Yato was made of thick muscle and fresh scars, even though he was as short as Shinsuke. After undressing, the redhead climbed into the small bed and pulled Shinsuke into his lap. Urgent hands explored the planes of Shinsuke's back while soft lips peppered kisses along his neck. Shinsuke shifted in the Yato's lap until he was comfortable. Then he wrapped his long legs around the other man's waist before pressing against his tanned skin.

He placed soft kisses along the length of his shoulders before his hands found Kamui's thick braid. He undid the plait until his hands were full of blood red hair. In the mean time, Kamui lifted his hips and inserted a finger in between the clefts of his cheeks. He moaned and ground against the finger, urging for the Yato to continue. When one finger became two, he grabbed a hold of Kamui's shoulders and slowly swiveled his hips. His heart stilled when Kamui's hands finally eased him down onto his cock. It hurt to breath as his body adjusted to Kamui's length, and they stayed silent for several minutes, unmoving as the tears that sprung in Shinsuke's working eye subsided and he finally urged the Yato to move.

For a self-proclaimed brute, Kamui was anything but. His calloused hands urged Shinsuke up and down the length of his manhood at a slow pace, massaging his ass and squeezing the scarred skin of his waist and back. Shinsuke moaned as his body became more and more receptive to Kamui's ministrations. He buried his face in Kamui's hair and inhaled the spicy scent of the oil that kept the red locks healthy and shiny. When Kamui's cock brushed against his prostate, he hissed and gripped Kamui's arms. He let out a throaty moan and shifted his hips, urging Kamui to quicken his pace.

Kamui thrusts became deep but leveled, while Shinsuke moaned incoherently into his hair. His thighs quivered as his body ached to be completely bound. He buried his fingers into his beloved's browned skin while the redhead increased his speed. Kamui's fingers left imprints on his waist while Shinsuke begged to for him to never let go. Shinsuke felt complete; he felt human.

When he finally climaxed, he cried out the Kamui's name with reverence. His body tightened around the Yato's cock almost instantly, and not too long after, he felt Kamui cum inside of him. He only made a move to relax once Kamui was completely spent and pressing fervent kisses against his face and dead eye. Shinsuke wanted to stay that way forever. Being held was a luxury he could rarely bring himself to indulge in, but when he did, he was desperate. He was desperate for love, for completion.

They laid on the bed for some time, their skin and semen cooling in the afternoon light. Outside, a light rain began to fall, and Shinsuke was surprised to see how nonchalant Kamui was with specks of rain filtering through the slits in the brickwork of the house. The air became even chillier, and the blanket that was once pooled around their feet now found itself draped over Shinsuke's shoulder. When Kamui made a move to get up, Shinsuke clutched his hand. He maneuvered himself so that he faced away from the man and curled into a fetal position. After several seconds, Kamui settled down besides him and spooned him so that his chest was pressed against Shinsuke's back while an arm closed protectively around his waist.

He fell asleep to the Yato's heartbeat.

* * *

When he woke up, Kamui was gone.

His clothes lay folded on top of a chair, while a bowl of clean water and a towel was laid out on the floor next to it. He slowly washed himself with the cool water and soft cloth before he finally pulled on the borrowed clothes. He found his boots outside on the patio, along with his sword. Yet, Kamui was no where to be found. When he peered at his surroundings, he found that this wasn't the house Kamui was referring to when they first met on Kouan. There was no garden, no life around these parts. Kamui had brought him to a throwaway, and then he left when he was done saving Shinsuke's life. Shinsuke smiled, feeling a part of his heart crumble, while the rest bubbled with rage. He turned on his heel and went back inside the house to plan his next move.

Kouan wanted him to leave. It was still expelling toxic fumes from its atmosphere and rebuilding its Altana reserves. It was a planet that needed to be nurtured and loved before it could be serviceable again, but Shinsuke didn't have the capabilities to provide any of that to the Yato's home planet. Deep down, Shinsuke felt somewhat rotten, but he figured he was always rotten inside.

He explored the throwaway and found food, clothes, and supplies. He spent days picking through the books he couldn't read and resting his body until he could flex his fingers and brandish his sword in record time. He spent over a week alone in that house with nonperishable foods and drums filled with fresh water, thinking about how nice it would have been if Kamui was there with him. Once he knew his body was up to par, he stepped outside of the house.

He put on the shoes and called for one of the Orochi. Settling on its back, he urged for it to bring him to Kamui. At first, the creatures were reluctant, as if they knew that their Master was still Kamui even if Shinsuke was their friend. He reassured one of the creatures by embracing the back of it's head and gently petting its hard skin. The creature purred like a cat, bringing a genuine smile to Shinsuke's face. After what seemed like hours of coaxing, the creatures finally began to slither towards Shinsuke's destination. They traveled for the better part of a day, air sharp and merciless until dawn became dusk and night fell across the land. Shinsuke felt his lungs begin to betray him again, but he buried his face in the Orochi's scales as they traveled across the terrain to wherever Kamui hid himself.

They found him standing on top of a sandy hill, his braid rippling with the violent wind. Kamui's back was to Shinsuke, and he could see that the younger man had put on a purple changshan and a brown belt this time. He wore white trousers and had on brown gloves. His umbrella gun was grasped in his hand and he was looking out to something Shinsuke couldn't see. When he was close enough, he got off the Orochi and began making his way up the hill.

“Stay right there,” Kamui commanded.

Shinsuke blinked and stopped. He was barely three feet up the hill, looking up at the man he saw as his beloved. “Isn't it lonely up there?”

“The thought never crossed my mind,” he said blankly.

Shinsuke smirked. “Liar.”

“You seem to think you know everything about me, Shinsuke.”

“I don't know a damn thing about you... But that doesn't mean I'm not willing to try.”

Kamui turned around and looked down to him. Shinsuke saw that his eyes were hollow pits, devoid of love and emotion. It reminded him of Gintoki's eyes after he killed their father, of Utsuro's when he first met Shinsuke without his mask. That was a monster on top of that hill, not Kamui.

But it was a monster Shinsuke had fallen in love with.

“I left you behind on Earth. Why did you come here?”

“Because I love you,” he said honestly.

Kamui didn't seem convinced. “Have you ever once spoken the truth in your entire life?”

“I'm a selfish man. I've never taken things for what they are, and I've destroyed everyone who's ever stood in my way.” Shinsuke unsheathed his sword. “And now I've got nothing to lose but you.”

Kamui aimed his gun at Shinsuke's head. “Didn't I tell you that I belong here now?”

“You belong with me,” he said, uncaring of the fact that he was about to die. “If I have to fight to bring you back, then so be it.” The first bullet ricocheted off his sword. Shinsuke lunged the next second with a deadly smile etched onto his face.

He brought out a demon. Kamui emptied magazines that would normally eat through skin and muscle like a knife through soft dough, but Shinsuke dodged and ducked as Kamui's rage festered and directed itself at him. Shinsuke drew first blood though . His sword cut Kamui's cheek, drawing barely a tinge of blood. The cut healed almost instantly, but the damage was done. Shinsuke had managed to clear the first step.

After that, the assaults were much more violent, but Kamui didn't go berserk once. His blue eyes were clear and hollow, his red hair bound in a plait that never seemed to come loose. They punched and kicked, stabbed and slashed, tumbled in sand and slammed against rocks. A headbutt sent Shinsuke careening into a rock, and a well-aimed kick planted Kamui face first into the sand. An uppercut almost broke Shinsuke's jaw, while a quick parry cut through the fabric of Kamui's changshan and almost lopped off one of his nipples. Shinsuke grinned while Kamui frowned. They fought, sword versus an umbrella gun, uncaring of the rest of the universe.

Their fight leveled the sandy hill into a flat surface while the sun rose over the horizon. It wasn't the sun next to Earth, but instead a star that seemed to bathe Kouan in an eery, pink light. To Shinsuke's surprise, the early morning rays seemed to make Kamui glow. He squawked at the breathtakingly beautiful man who'd been his friend and willing partner in crime for four years. This was the man who joined him on his quest to destroy Earth, never asking for payment, only the promise that they'd have a good time touring hell together. This was the man who respected him for the creature that he'd become, the man who saved his life over and over again. This was the man who took Death as a close friend instead of a constant enemy. Kamui only looked forward, only smiled ahead, only knew that whatever a person wanted had to be something they were willing to die for. Everyday that Kamui fought, he fought to die for his crew. Everyday that he looked over the horizon, he looked to ensure that he and the Yato that followed him had a future to look forward to. He was a leader, a hero, and in some awful way, an immortal god who'd found his place as the mercenary king of the universe with an entire planet as his playground.

He was the man who held Shinsuke closer than a lover. He was the same man who never took advantage of Shinsuke when he was down, and for the first time in their lives, stole a kiss that was as gentle as it was fleeting. This was the man who held him in his arms and made love to him like he was made of centuries old porcelain, like Shinsuke deserved to be loved and cared for even while chipped on the outside and broken on the inside. This man, who loved him so gently and fiercely at the same time, this was the being Shinsuke had fallen in love with- the one Shinsuke would die for.

The Orochi howled, breaking him out of his reverie. They'd fought the entire night, giving it their best shot from the start. In the distance, he saw the snake-like creatures rise from the ground as if to greet the pink sun that bathed the land in dim, pink light.

“You samurai can never mind your own business, can you? Always meddling in affairs that have nothing to do with you, like old biddies.”

Shinsuke spit out a wad of blood and smiled viciously at the man who had a piece of his heart clutched in his fists. “We've never been the wisest breed. Maybe Zura's the exception, but he married an Amanto who hides underneath a duck costume, so who knows?”

Kamui stared, unfeeling and motionless. “Why are you even here? You have everything on Earth to gain, but not a single thing on Kouan accepts you.”

Shinsuke laughed. The howls of mirth transformed into coughs as the bullet wounds riddled throughout his body began to kill him faster than Kouan's air. “You're not there, so how do I have everything?”

Kamui cocked his head to the side. “How can you be so selfish?”

“Any man willing to die while courting his beloved deserves some pardon.”

And with that, Kamui threw his last bullet. Shinsuke smiled as his sword slipped out of his fingers, the bullet piercing his chest. He almost cringed at the pain, but managed to keep smiling. When his body couldn't hold him up any longer, he fell on his back and looked up at the pink sky and gray clouds. Kamui came into his vision soon after, blank-eyed and emotionless.

“You were the most beautiful person I ever saved.” It hurt to talk, but he didn't want things to end like it did with Shouyou and Gintoki. He didn't want to scream while dying, or fade into the abyss without telling his friend that he never meant to hurt him. He wanted to die being honest, just this once. “When you said we could tour hell together, I took advantage. I thought I could use what you had and keep coming back for more. I was wrong and I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Kamui.”

“You'd die with me?” Kamui asked. “Die on this planet that would steal the breath from your lungs?”

The darkness swallowed him before he could answer. It was his shit luck, as usual. Yes, he wanted to say.

_I'd die with you._

* * *

This time, he woke up to Tatsuma's crying face. He had an oxygen mask over his face, and heavy white bandages covered almost the entirety of his body. He reached out for his friend's hand, and when Tatsuma took notice, he enveloped him in a tight hug.

The story was as Shinsuke suspected. The borrowed crew woke up to their dying captain slumped at the entrance of their ship. They'd left Kouan an hour after they'd brought him into the surgery theater, and Tatsuma had barged in twenty-four hours after that. A combined fourteen holes were littered throughout his body, a mixture of entry and exit wounds. They'd kept him in and out of surgery for a week before finally deeming him stable enough to be brought out of his medically induced coma.

That had been two weeks ago. They were still floating in space, but it was just outside Earth's range. If Shinsuke wanted, they could be back in his fishing village in a few hours, but he wondered what the point was since he'd failed to bring back his precious person.

“If yer meant to be, you'll see each other again. You gotta have faith, Shinsuke.”

He grunted, taking a long drag of his pipe. He hadn't smoked since he left Earth to search for Kamui. He felt much lighter now that the tobacco filled his lungs instead of Kouan's poisonous air. “Oboro is alive.”

Tatsuma gawked. “What!?”

Shinsuke nodded, taking another drag of his pipe. “I took him to a private hospital after the battle. The doctors on the Kiheitai's ship kept him alive and stable in an induced coma while we traveled back to Earth. After he healed, I found him a caretaker and hid him away in Osaka. I've been visiting him frequently and learning more about Utsuro. I.... I became obsessed. I wanted to know what kind of man he was. Did you know that he killed Oboro's entire family in front of him and then fed him his blood to prolong his life? Who does that to a child, Tatsuma? Who kills a kid's entire family and then forces him to live as the killer's son?”

Tatsuma gawked. “He... he did that?”

Shinsuke's hand shook as he inhaled more smoke into his lungs. “If news got out that he was still alive, the public would call for his head... and I couldn't let him die. He knew too much. Hell, he _still_ knows too much. I can't forgive Shouyou if I don't know what it is I'm forgiving him for.”

“Does Gintoki know?”

Shinsuke cringed at the name. “No. I haven't spoken to him in two years.”

Tatsuma sighed. “You could've told us. We would have helped you hide him.”

“I know,” he deadpanned.

“When are you gonna start remembering we're yer friends?” Tatsuma groused. “That we're here for ya?”

“Starting now,” Shinsuke promised. “Starting now.”

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope y'all enjoyed the smuttles. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
> 
> And geez, can y'all _believe_ my son Oboro made it out of the Rakuyou arc alive. I'm so excited!!!
> 
> Read and review, folks! See you next week for the last chapter! And yes! This is the last chapter of angst! I promised y'all fluff and it'll be here next week!! *3*


	4. A Married Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was a lone flower on Kouan, but not even _it_ could hold a candle to Kamui.

Oboro had lost most of the mobility in his legs after their battle, so Shinsuke had bought him a wheelchair and several prosthetics to replace the limbs that had been lost over the years. He was praying when Shinsuke came to take him to where Gintoki was tucked away by the sea. The ash-haired man didn't say much and simply put his beads in his pocket while Shinsuke rolled him away.

The facility was bordered by the sea and some sparse forestry. There were easier ways in, but Shinsuke chose the scenic path that cut through a mountain and several bridges over craggy rocks and roaring waves. Oboro looked out the window of Shinsuke's rented car, his face emotionless but his eyes brimming with curiosity. He wondered if the man did anything else over the years besides kill when necessary and sleep when he wasn't leading a squadron of murderers. From his calculations, Oboro was forty-four now. Utsuro had adopted him when he was six. He'd been the monster's child for thirty-eight years, more than twice as long as Shinsuke, Gintoki, and Zura had been the monster's child.

He parked the car in a visitor's parking lot and helped Oboro outside. The sea air was tangy, one that Oboro welcomed as he inhaled its scent and softened his eyes. It was a change from the dark house in the equally dark forest Shinsuke kept Oboro away in. He made a mental note to bring him back.

He pushed his chair up to the entrance of Gintoki's part of the rehabilitation center, even though Oboro was more than capable of wheeling himself over. Once they were at the entrance, he asked the ash-haired man to stay put as he greeted the samurai first. Gintoki was reading Jump, lounging on the large bed only he and several pillows shared. The rest of the Yorozuya and Kamui's father would come by later in the day, after they'd finished their odd jobs and braved a couple of smiles. At first, Gintoki didn't seem to notice, but after a minute, Shinsuke cleared his throat. “I came to say sorry,” he deadpanned. Gintoki didn't answer and instead flipped a flimsy page of the shounen magazine, effectively ignoring him. “I brought someone you could speak with. Maybe he can help.”

Gintoki still didn't answer. Shinsuke slid open the door and helped Oboro inside. It took three seconds for Gintoki's eyes to widen and another three for Oboro to nod at him. “Shiroyasha.”

Shinsuke slid the door shut behind them and went about his next task.

* * *

 

Matako jumped on him, burying her head in his chest. “Shinsuke-samaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Take me with you! I can't handle the constant meetings and Takechi-senpai refuses to cover for me! This is an injustice!”

Shinsuke patted her head while she listed her worries, and finally, her accomplishments. Bansai pulled him into an awkward hug afterwards, while Henpeita nodded and welcomed him back.

“Will you be joining the new government?” Zura asked, pouring him a drink later in the evening when things had gone quiet.

“No,” he said softly.

“Back to the shadows then?”

Shinsuke thought about it. “No, not anymore.”

Zura didn't ask him to clarify, and Shinsuke found that even the smallest of reprieves were worthy of being thankful for.

* * *

 

The sun was as beautiful as the rest of the universe. Shinsuke wished he could get close enough to touch it, but Tatsuma would just screech and drag him back. Maybe next time, when the flames weren't so bright.

Shouyou's ghost followed his every step. “Love is hard, Shinsuke. It takes patience and time to nurture.”

“I've never been the patient type, so this might be a life lesson,” he said to thin air.

“Every moment is a life lesson,” Shouyou chuckled. “Will you take a journey?”

“Maybe,” he told the specter. “Maybe I'll roam forever. Who knows?”

Shouyou smiled, almost as if he'd expected that answer. “Try again.”

“Try what again?”

“To be happy,” Shouyou said gently. “Patience and time, Shinsuke. That's all it takes.”

And with that, he disappeared. For as long as Shinsuke lived, the ghost never came back.

* * *

 

But Shinsuke was only as patient as his heart was still. That didn't equate to much time, so within months, he was back on Kouan. This time he had an oxygen tank and better clothes. He had his new crew park his brand new ship on the banks of a brown river and stepped out into the dusty landscape. He walked six miles before the Orochi finally greeted him. He bowed to the hydra-like creatures. When they started slithering away from him, he quietly followed.

The house was near a gray waterfall. Shinsuke figured it would take a long time before the water fully flushed out the toxins from the nuclear warfare and the Altana leak, but for now, it was serviceable. Kamui's garden was tucked away near the base of the waterfall, where a small pond was wreathed in green and yellow foliage. Shinsuke saw flowers, but he didn't dare to pick them. He instead pulled out the ones he brought with him from Earth.

He left the bouquet of wildflowers and the ring at Kamui's door and then made his way back to his ship.

* * *

 

“You the type to buy yer girl flowers on her birthday?” His new second-in-command inquired as they took a light lunch. They were traveling around the galaxy, picking up raw materials and furnishings for the school Shinsuke intended to build in the village Kamui had stayed in for a little while.

Shinsuke took a sip of his sake and nodded. “I'm the type of guy to buy his husband his birthday present a month in advance.”

* * *

 

Kamui sent back the ring with one of his men, but he didn't send back the flowers. Shinsuke chalked that up to a win. When one of his students asked why he was grinning madly at the gold band in the palm of his hand, he told the little girl that he was one step closer to a wedding date. She frowned and asked him why he'd involve himself in that kind of mess when he could spend the rest of his life being lazy and strumming a shamisen. She had a point, so he let her skip the last lesson of the day.

* * *

 

“You're courting the most dangerous bachelor in the universe,” Abuto warned him. “Danchou doesn't like to feel. He thinks it makes him wonky. If ya ask me, _everything_ makes him wonky. I don't think he's ever been normal.” Abuto bounced his son on his leg while his husband dashed around the house picking up toys and and screeching into his phone about lost paperwork. The cooing child reached for Shinsuke's finger, so he plopped a calloused finger in the tiny baby's hands. The little boy squealed, drooling on Shinsuke's finger while his father smiled affectionately.

“Hmm.”

* * *

 

Somewhere along the way, Umibouzo and his daughter found out about his intentions, and almost broke down the door to the tiny hut he had renovated for himself and Oboro. When Gintoki and Shinpachi strolled in with his future in-laws, he and Oboro looked up from their game of shogi and blinked.

“What do you want with Kamui, Cyclops!” Kagura screeched, her umbrella gun aimed at his head.

“I will protect my son's honor, even if it's the last thing I do.” Umibouzu chuckled with a malignant glint shining in his eyes as he aimed his umbrella gun at Shinsuke's balls. Behind the Yato, Gintoki picked his nose and stuck out his tongue while the bespectacled young man rubbed his forehead.

Oboro decided to speak for Shinsuke before he got himself shot again.

* * *

 

It took three years, but they were three years Shinsuke managed with lots of traveling, frequent letters about the school he and Oboro opened, timed gifts, and lots of info-hoarding. Shinsuke learned when Kamui contracted himself and his Yato mercenaries out, found out where their services went, even kept tabs on the countless wars they'd fought and were fighting on countless planets throughout this galaxy and the next. He learned some of the languages of the universe, became fluent in a few, and conversational in a lot. He read books that he'd seen Kamui devour when no one was looking, and researched the tales the redhead had recited to him on nights when Shinsuke was quiet and thought of nothing but death.

Kamui gained enough capital to build a small village on Kouan. On the day he received the news from Abuto, Shinsuke took the day off from teaching and went to Shouyou's grave. He sat down and began telling his dead father about the new school he'd opened with his brother, and how they were teaching both Japanese and several Amanto languages to the children so that they would be able to navigate the new world more effectively. Then he began to tell Shouyou about the man he'd fallen in love with. Shinsuke talked and talked and talked, and his father listened.

Over the years, Abuto slipped him pictures of the newly built infrastructure on Kouan. He also gave him freshly drafted maps that Kamui's troops were now distributing across the universe to let the scattered and surviving Yato know that Kouan was still alive. Shinsuke acquired samples of the sand, flora, and fauna of his beloved's planet. In a cabinet made of simple oak, he put the jars of sand, flora, and fauna next to his schoolbook and old sword.

In those three years, Shinsuke also learned that Kouka of the Yato loved Kankou of the Yato much more than he'd ever imagined. He heard whispers of the Master of Kouan, but journeys across the universe for orphan children and cheap materials taught him something incredible about the woman who came to rescue him in his dreams. Finally, on a day trip to the planet of the Shinra, Shinsuke came across a rough sketch of a beautiful woman being sold in a bazaar.

“Who is she?” He asked the old man sweeping the area around his stall.

“A goddess,” the old man said happily. “Our ancestors once knew of a woman who could defeat ten demons in ten days, with no food or sleep in between. It's an old Yato tale,” the old man chuckled. “They called _her_ the Master of Kouan before the newer stories began to describe a monster. She was never a monster.”

“How old is her legend?” Shinsuke inquired.

“She's been around for over a thousand years.” The old man handed him the sketch, uncolored and crinkled with age. “But the new legends have forgotten her.”

“A thousand years,” Shinsuke repeated.

“A thousand years,” the old man sighed. “We Yato are a dying race. Sometimes, it's nice to have a goddess in our hearts so we can remember the home we lost.”

Shinsuke took the sketch and handed the old man a flyer along with his payment. Then he went home and put the picture between his old notebook and a lone flower of Kouan trapped in the controlled confines of a glass jar.

* * *

When the first wave of Yato returned, Kamui stepped down as the Master of Kouan and went back to his mother.

They met on a beach next to a roaring sea in Rakuyou, a light rain coating their clothes with a fresh sheen of moisture. “Fancy meeting you here,” he teased, blowing smoke out of his new pipe. He wore a red haori embossed with patterns of golden dragons. He'd taken up trousers and simple tunics, and he looked ten years younger and several years healthier. The psychotic smile had disappeared over the years, only to be replaced by a coquettish quirk of his lips.

Kamui looked almost the same, except his hair was much longer and his bangs thicker. He'd taken to braiding his hair in a fishtail, and had it draped over his shoulder instead of having it hang down his back. He hadn't put on much weight, but Shinsuke knew that beneath the blue changshan and red trousers, fresh scars and newly built muscle were waiting to be explored.

“You're on _my_ turf, Shinsuke,” Kamui chimed, his perpetual smile as bright and beautiful as ever.

Shinsuke shrugged, smiling around his pipe. His lecherous side peeked through and he didn't feel an ounce of shame. “Are you gonna do something about it?”

“I'd kill you, but then that would mean having your freakish friends after me again, so I'd rather not.”

Shinsuke hummed. “We're a persistent bunch.”

“An _annoying_ bunch,” Kamui corrected.

Shinsuke grinned smugly. “How does it feel to be on the receiving end of relentless pursuit?”

Kamui didn't miss a beat. “Eat shit.”

“Only if you join me,” Shinsuke laughed, blowing out more smoke. “Say, if you're not busy, can I take you out for a coffee?”

* * *

Their first house was in Kyushu, far enough away from Kamui's father and sister, and close to the sea so that Kamui could swim frequently and Oboro could enjoy the sea air. Shinsuke had the builders construct a ramp and a wheelchair-accessible garden so that Oboro could roam around without any trouble. He also built smaller rooms near the back for when Abuto and the other Yato visited on business and vacation. It was hard being married to a mercenary king who constantly had to travel for work, but Shinsuke promised himself he'd brave it with a smile on his face. He'd gotten tired of being sad all the time. He had a future to look forward to now. He could be facetious and petty _with_ his husband.

Their second home was on Kouan, a place furnished with simple furniture and filtered with clean air so that Shinsuke wouldn't cough up blood every three days. Their third home was on a planet with black skies and yellow terrain. Their fourth was on Shinsuke's spaceship, while the fifth was built into Kamui's new battleship. On their wedding day, they only invited the people they cared about, but it still ended in a fight when Shinsuke made the mistake of inviting his father-in-law and sister-in-law without considering his fiance's feelings. Needless to say, he'd never make _that_ mistake again, but at least they'd brought nice gifts.

They slept underneath large comforters, wrapped in each others arms like cats. Shinsuke's feet always got cold, so when he was feeling extra petty, he'd rub his rough soles against Kamui's thighs until the Yato grumbled and spooned him into submission. The spooning sometimes turned into kissing, but more often then not, it turned into sultry whispers and persistent groping on both their parts before Kamui nudged Shinsuke's legs apart and took him from behind. Shinsuke was the smug type, so he often phoned Tatsuma afterwards to brag about his husband's impeccable stroke game and nine inch cock while Tatsuma lamented Gintoki's limpdick antics and his inability to appropriately suck a dick without using teeth. _That_ often resulted in Kamui nagging him to control his gossipy tendencies, which then led Shinsuke to nonchalantly blow tobacco smoke in his face, which _then_ resulted in sex against various pieces of furniture and against walls until they were both too tired to be petty anymore and fell asleep in each others arms somewhere on the floor. Sometimes, Oboro had the misfortune of walking in on their petty mating rituals, and had to take up praying several times a day to make the images go away.

And after long days when neither had the time to eat well, they'd kiss and hold each other while eating store-bought meals. On some days, Shinsuke's depression would cripple him into silence and prompt him to take the day off from teaching and spend the time smoking and mulling over his old schoolbook. On those days, Kamui would kiss his forehead and make him his meals before heading off to work. Sometimes, Shinsuke would return the favor when Kamui was too deep in thought about his mother, the first Master of Kouan.

They whispered stories to each other, complained about work, and squabbled about the things only old married couples squabbled about. They slept late into the day if they had nothing to do the next morning. They held hands, gave each other flowers, and lived quietly. The comforting gaze of another's eyes quelled the rage in Shinsuke's soul, and before he knew it, he was free.

He left bellflowers on Kouka's gravestone six months after their wedding. He thanked her for bringing him back. On Earth, Shinsuke took Kamui to where Shouyou was buried, and together they asked for his blessing.

* * *

Shinsuke kissed his husband's brow after wrapping the bandage around the cut on his head. “I told you to be careful and _not_ to jump in the fucking volcano.”

Kamui smiled sheepishly. “It was a cool volcano.”

Shinsuke scoffed. “Idiot.”

“Yeah, but I'm _your_ idiot~”

Shinsuke hummed and accepted his Yato's embrace. “My idiot.”

Ten seconds later, five children burst through their door with Oboro on their heels. “Pappy! I caught a frog!”

“I caught one too!”

“I caught _four!”_

Three of the children leaped on top of their fathers with their frogs, sending all five them and the tiny creatures to the floor. The other two stared judgmentally at their fallen family members and scoffed before going to stand next to their wheelchair-bound uncle.

Kamui lay dazed on the ground, blood leaking from a new cut on the back of his head. The children picked themselves up and smiled sheepishly at their human father while Shinsuke glared daggers at them. He brushed the dirt off his haori and stared lamentably at his comatose husband.

“You killed your father... again.”

“If we give him food, he'll magically come back to life,” snickered one of the girls.

“Pappy likes food.”

“He likes Tou-chan too,” remarked the smartass standing next to her ash-haired uncle.

Shinsuke rolled his eyes and sat down on the floor. He picked up Kamui's dazed head and placed it on his lap. The Yato cracked open his eyes while Shinsuke threaded his fingers through his thick red hair.

“I must be in heaven,” Kamui said with a dopey smile, looking up at him with bright blue eyes filled to the brim with love.

Shinsuke didn't reply, but he smiled and stroked the Yato's cheek. One of the children brought him the first aid kid and plopped down next to him. The others crowded around the adults while Shinsuke bandaged up the new cut.

“It's gonna rain today,” one the boys said knowingly, curling up to his Yato father.

“Hmm?” Kamui hummed questioningly.

“We'll have to stay inside,” one of the girls said morosely.

“That's fine,” Shinsuke stated. “We'll watch a movie.” Once Shinsuke was done, he stayed put. He found that he didn't want to get up, so he began dragging his fingers lightly across Kamui's cheeks and forehead. Kamui grasped his wrist and nuzzled the skin of Shinsuke's calloused hand against his cheek. Shinsuke smiled affectionately down at the man he called his beloved.

Two of their children latched onto his side, while the other three jumped on Kamui and made him hug all three of them. They began telling the adults about the frogs that were hopping around a pond some yards away from the house and how they were going to bring their school friends out to the pond tomorrow to explore the area and catch some more critters. They told them about the new Amanto that had come to town, the new stores that opened up along the banks of a river some towns away, and new friends. They begged to go visit their uncles, one of them an Amanto hiding underneath a duck costume and incredibly learned in the art of Uno. They squabbled and teased, screeched and squealed, and all Shinsuke and Kamui did was listen and nod while Oboro chuckled in the background.

A light rain began to fall outside their home, and in heaven, Kouka and Shouyou smiled.

* * *

**FIN**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed yet another Takamui headcanon ending fic! Feedback keeps me alive! Thank you for reading! (*￣з￣)


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